Wednesday, June 14, 2006

 
Re Iain "Tommyrotgut Mc"Murray: Ask a First Sea Lord about "safe sailing"...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Mountbatten

I know that I've sent you the following reminiscences about the old National Lampoon's coverage of the assassination of the elderly Lord Mountbatten, but it seems timely to bring up again the memory* which was of a purported IRA spokesman saying something along the lines of getting into the Guinness Book of World Records by killing its founder and also vowing to kill Ansel Adams. Hardeeharharho and all that, and Ansel Adams, of course did not die at the hands of the IRA, but I was surprised to Google today that the IRA did, in fact, murder on of the researchers for the Guiness book in 1975:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness_World_Records

-so I failed to "get" part of the NatLamp piece many years ago at the time.

And in acknowledgement of the "robustness" of the response cited by Iain Murray, one should note that the vast majority of the crew of the USS Cole and of the Achille Lauro survived, if not exactly "safely," their respective attacks. And the shipmates of Leon Klinghoffer had the opportunity to watch what I'm sure was a really swell opera- named for him- some time later.

"Bone" Voyage!